Jerusalem: The Biography

† Archaeologists had started exploring tunnels beneath the Arab homes that bordered the entire western wall of the Temple Mount duringthe 1950s and Professor OlegGrabar, the future doyen of Jerusalem scholars, remembers how they would frequently appear as if by magic out of the floors in the kitchens of the surprised residents. Under Israeli archaeologists, the tunnel yielded – and continues to do so – the most breathtaking finds from the immense stones of the foundations of Herod’s Temple, via Maccabee, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad buildings, to a new Crusader chapel. But the tunnel also contained the place closest to the Temple’s Foundation Stone where Jews could now pray–and it united Jerusalem by linkingthe Jewish and Muslim Quarters.